83rd Year, No.49
Election Special—Section Two
Friday, November 3, 1972
ELECTION 1972
'72 Elections Spiced with Promises
Candidate Nixon Competing For Top Prize, 'Four More'
By BARBARA SPURLOCK
Kansan Writer
On Nov. 8, 1962, Kansas City readers who opened their newspapers to the editorial columnist
"The most conspicuous personal drama of last Tuesday's election was Richard Nixon's desperate last-ditch bid to save his political career," an editorial began.
"It failed conspicuously. And the man who missed the presidency by an eyelash is retired from active political life in a state running against an unimpressive governor."
The writer referred, of course, to Nixon's unsuccessful attempt to win the California gubernatorial election in 1962.
been predicted ever since he barely lost the presidency in 1960 to John F. Kennedy, The California defeat seemed to doom Nixon's chances forever.
Experts speculated about his downfall. Columnist James Reston wrote, "He came to the U.S. before he mastered the techniques of politics before he mastered the principles, and ironically, it was this preoccupation with techniques that brought him forward and cast him down."
BUT THE experts were wrong. Richard Newton, after a change of residence to New York and after a relief from politics, rose against him, winning mainly in 1968. And he hasn't been down since.
Once again the nation looks at Candidate Nixon, who, this time around, is the preferred candidate by an approximate two to one margin, according to the polls.
Very few people seem to really know him. He was born on Jan, 9, 1939, in Yerba Linda, Calif., the second of five sons in a Quaker family. He was always a leader. He was president of the student body of Whittier College, and later president of his law class. He attended college but could not be a college football hero, but his inability left him on the bench most of the time.
While practicing law in Whitttier, Calif., he was temporarily president of an orange juice company. Aggressive in many areas, he later tried out for the leading role in a theater group so he could play opposite a girl who had caught his eye. Pat Rivan.
LATER ON, WHEN he entered the political scene, news reporters have reported extreme difficulty getting to know the man.
Nixon's avoidance of press conferences and spontaneous contact with the public has caused this distance, John Osborn, columnist for the New Republican, said.
James Keough, author of "This is Nixon," published in 1956, wrote, "Some men fear him. Those who do are, in considerable part, people who believe that his patriotism and his ambition are too intense, or who misunderstand him. Some men cannot understand the larger group represented and affected by certain laws regarding themselves as defenders of intellectualism, and who look upon Nixon as too plain, too blunt, too slick."
Nixon does reveal a more human side in the forward of his book, "Six Crises", written in 1802. "Courage—or putting it into practice" is an important discipline. Any man who claims never to have known fear is either lying or else he is stupid. But by an act of will, he refuses to think of the reasons for fear and so concludes entirely on winning the battle," he wrote.
NIXON'S WORDS on courage may be his strongest conviction. Some people who have analyzed his political positions from the beginning claim that Nixon's policies are like products to be sold to the public, one which he tries to avoid depending on the discounts and state of the market. His only overriding principle seems to be the unity of the Republican party.
Several critics of Nixon have found that Nixon often thinks in terms of opposites. As a successful debater in the 1960s, he learned the value of contrast. When nothing exists in reality to offer a contrast, he fabricates one. For instance, campaigning the first
President, he pointed out that his family assistance plan was far more desirable than a guaranteed annual income for welfare recipients. Actually, no guaranteed annual income plan existed, but the idea of one provided a good balance for Nixon's plan, appealing to some of the more conservative opponents of welfare.
DURING ONE YEAR, Nixon was reported as both pro-Joe McCarthy and antiMcCarthy, for increased foreign aid and against it, alienated by the Korean War, and supportive of it as a move to drive out Communists.
The word "Communist" seems to stir up a strong feeling in Richard Nixon. About his advocacy of a strong defense against Communists in Korea, Nixon said, "It is not easy for me to take this position. It happens that I am a Quaker. All of my training has been against displays of strength and fear. I have learned through hard experience that I confronted with a ruthless, dictatorial force that will stop at nothing to destroy you, it is necessary to defend yourself by building your own strength."
Nixon's successful campaign in 1946 to obtain a seat in Congress was based largely on the premise that a vote for Nixon was a vote against the Communists. Nixon was the champion in 1948 of the Alger Hiss case, attempting to prove that an ex-Communist's club was more liberal than the State Department executive, was associated with the Communists, were true.
IN HIS 1950 Senate race against Mrs. Helen Gaham Douglas, Nixon linked her Congressional voting record with Communist interests.
See NIXON Page 3
By STEVEN RIEL
Kansan Staff Writer
Candidate McGovern Strives For Peak in Uphill Battle
For George McGovern the uphill climb has been a way of life. Close elections and the dangers of duilacades have been the rule rather than the exception in his political career, a career that for the first time has been successful. Nineteen
years of climbing have brought McGovern centifically close to the Presidency of the United States.
Trailing Richard Nixon by up to 25 percentage points in polls published in the last few weeks before the general election, McGavon has yet to face his greatest test,
McGovern's political career has been cause for astonishment. In 1953 he resigned from a teaching position at Dakota Wesleyan and began to devote his energies to the Democratic party in South Dakota. He then became Democratic party for the next four years.
SOUTH DAKOTA in the '56 was solidly Republican. Democratic representation in the state legislature consisted of two members of 110, and the state still is a Republican stronghold. But McGovern traveled the state and helped establish the groundwork for Democratic organization. Times he credited his entrance into politics, in part, to inspiration provided by Adlai Stevenson.
In 1956 McGovern declared his candidacy for representative from the 1st Congressional District of South Dakota. He won the election with 52.4 per cent of the vote, and he was elected congressman from the state in 20 years. He retained his seat in the House in 1958.
McGovern looked to the Senate in 1960 and challenged Sen. Karl Mundt in the election. He was defeated by 15,000 votes. But the newly elected President, John F. Kennedy, appointed him director of the Food for Five program, a position he retained until 1982.
DURING HIS years as administrator of Food for Peace, McGovern began to regard
hunger in the United States as a major problem. Through his efforts, he helped raise awareness on the issue
In 1962 McGovern again declared his candidacy for the Senate and won by the slim margin of 597 votes. He was re-elected receiving 38,000 more votes than his opponent.
It was then that McGovern began to receive national attention. During these years he first spoke out in opposition to the Iraq war, and later participated in his first campaign for the presidency.
IN HIS 1972 campaign speeches McGovern has referred frequently to his early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. And in 1963 McGovern was one of the first Congressmen to denounce the U.S. war role.
Before the Senate in 1963 he said, "The ap we have fallen into will haunt us until we die."
McGovern has said that his experiences in World War II were important in formulating his antiwar position. In the war McGovern was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery when the plane he commanded was hit by flak over Italy.
This early antiwar position has evolved into McGovern's present commitment to withdraw entirely from the war. But in 1964, 1965 and 1966 he backed off from strong antiwar sentiment. In 1964 he voted for the Gulf of Kushkin resolution, supported Lyndon Johnson and let Sen. Wayne Morse and Sen. Lyndon Johnson send an anti-war message unassisted. In 1966 McGovern repealed the Totonkai resolution. In the interim, he formulated a Vietnam policy.
HE ADVOCATED in July 1965 the cessation of bombing in both North and South Vietnam and later propounded an enclave theory to minimize war casualties.
In 1966 he wrote, "A holding action which reduces the loss of life and protects our position for whatever time is necessary to deal with a crisis." In other words,iment, is now the most realistic strategy."
On April 25, 1967, he said, "Congress must never again surrender its power under our constitutional system by permitting an ill-advised, de崖arled war of this kind . . . but cannot be very proof of its function in the diary history of this steadily widening war."
Since 1967, McGovern has remained in the forefront of congressional doves, but not on the basis of the honorable settlement he once considered the most realistic. In 1988, after the death of Robert Kennedy, who had been a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, McGovern announced that he would seek the nomination.
ONLY 18 DAYS remained before the convention but McGovner said he hoped to gain support from Kennedy backers or at least to influence the Vietnam plank adopted in the Democratic platform. Fewer than 150 people attended the convention and Hubert Humphrey won the nomination.
MGovern's voting record in the Senate during the '60s displayed strong convictions
in a variety of policy areas. He consistently voted against the Antiballistic Missile System and voted for civil rights legislation, farm programs, campaign spending laws, income disclosure laws and Great Society programs.
McGovern voted in 1968 to delete funds for Sentinel Antbilistic Missile deployment. In 1969 he voted against an appropriation to allow development of the Safeguard ABM system, and against funding of Safeguard installations, two Air Force bases in the United States.
See McGOVERN Page 7
5 Incumbents Favored
By BOB LITCHFIELD
Kansas Staff Writer
The five incumbent Congressmen from Kansas are favored to win re-election, and a hard campaign has shaped up in only one district.
Dr. William Roy of Topeka, the first Democrat to represent Kansas in the Congress in a decade, is facing a tough challenge. Charles D. McAtee on the 2nd District.
Roy holds a considerable edge in most polls, but McAfee has received support from both his rivals, R-Kan, and President Nixon's brother, John, who have been campaigning in his behalf.
The four Republican incumbents seem assured of landslide victories. The Democratic challenger in the 3rd District, Steve Scott, creator of the nationally syndicated Bananas," has dropped out of active campaign because of a shortage of funds.
The 3rd District incumbent, Rep. Larry Winn Jr., is seeking his fourth term. Winn serves on the Science and Astronautics Veterans Affairs Committee and the Select Committee on Crime. He is a supporter of President Nixon's programs in the House.
BARSOTTI ATTEMPTED to finance his campaign from small contributions, shaking traditional fund raising methods. He is a teacher at the Kansas City Art Intensive, a critic and a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. George McGovern.
Election Special
Editor's Note: Most of the stories for the election section were written by Ms. Gorsky, Journalism's editorial and interpretive writing class. The biography section was completed with the cooperative of the candidates who are running for political offices, are on campaign four and five of this section.
McAtee has tried to profit from the popularity of the president in Kansas in his house bid. He has tried to link Roy to the Democratic presidential nominee and his most contemptuous stands while at the same time he worked hard for President Nixon's legislation.
ROY WAS A practicing physician before his election to Congress. He also holds a law degree.
Roy has said the entire state benefits by having two-party representation in Washington and as a member of the majority party in Congress he has access to the leadership of the chairmen on a basis not available to any other representative from Kansas.
Both the Prohibition party and the Conservative party, the Kansas affiliate of Alabama Gov. George Wallace's American Republican Party, are congressional seats. The Conservative party is on the ballot in the 2nd and 3rd Districts which contain populous Johnson, Wyandotte and Shawnee counties. The Prohibition candidates in three of the districts.
He has been a critic of American policy in Southeast Asia and has called for an end to the trade embargo against Iran, that the United States receive an accounting of the missing in action and a return of the prisoners of war. He consistently has voted for spending reductions in Congress and is seeking to pass a bill to stop such embargos of war.
Incumbent Republican congressman Keith Sebelius, Garner Shriver and Joe Skubitz are expected to win easily. Their leadership is traditionally Republican western Kansas.
CONSERVATIVE: Warren E. Redding,
47, Member, Wyandotte County Mobile
Home Association, WWII veteran. Land
Association, 298-1000 Kansas Ave.
Avenue, Kane City, Kim 6411
Candidates for United States Representative:
DEMOCRAT: Charles Barsotti, 39. B.A.
Southwest Texas State College; postgraduate work in special education.
Member, Common Course; American Civil
3RD DISTRICT
Liberties Union, Magazine Cartoonist Guild. Previous experience: Counselor and administrator for Brown Schools, Inc., residential treatment center for mentally retarded, 1957-64; San Marcos, Texas, Zoning Board, 1962-63; writer, cartoonist, editor, Hallmark Cards Inc., 1964-67, regular feature cartoonist and cartoon contract artist for Evening Post, 1967-49, teacher Kansas City Art Institute, Present address: 7648 Canterbury, Pra rie Village, 66208.
REPUBLICAN: Larry Winn Jr., 35,
Overland Park incumbent. B.A., University
of Kansas, Member of Board of Directors;
Johnson County United Fund Council;
Memorial Union Building; Memorial
Union Building; tumor Achievement; Shawne Mission Hospital.
real estate director, 20 years; national
director, National Association of Home
Builders, 15 years; past president, Sigma
Republican Chairman; Republican State
Executive Committee; vice president,
Winn-Rau Corporation (developers and
builders), 1961 to date. U.S. Congress, 1967
Committee, Veterans Affairs Commission,
Committee on Crime. Present address: 5401
West 103rd Terrace, Overland Park, 62070.
IST DISTRICT: Morris Coover, 74,
Democrat, farmer and merchant; Daniel
Scoggin, Prohibition, sales representative,
Democratic,ius, 55. Republicic,
incumbent, lawyer.
2ND DISTRICT: Bert Falley, 44 Conservative, food chain manager; William Roy, 46. Democrat incumbent; physician; Charles McAtee, 43, Republican, lawyer and David Scoggin, 33, Prohibition, oil company branch manager.
4TH DISTRICT: John Stevens, 59,
Democrat, businessman, and Garner
Shriver, 60, Republican incumbent, lawyer.
5TH DISTRICT: Lloyd Kitch, Democrat,
community commissioner, and Joe Skubitz, 61,
Republican incumbent, teacher and
lawyer.
Anticipation
The county clerk's office is the scene of bustling activity these days, as election day, Nov. 7, draws near; Douglas County Clerk Delbert Mattia packs packages of ballots ready for more than 28,000 voters in the district. The county devoted all of its time to election business for months; registering
Kansan Photo by DAN LAUING
voters, making up ballots and ballot boxes and setting up polling locations. The county clerk's office will be especially busy election night compiling the voting totals from the precincts. The final total will not be known until the morning of Nov. 8.